


Tea for Two

by orphan_account



Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-09
Updated: 2012-10-09
Packaged: 2017-11-15 23:39:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Jack, people like you and I are <i>made</i> of baggage."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tea for Two

**Author's Note:**

> Note to self: rewatching end of Doctor Who season 1 without a buddy is a bad idea.
> 
> ad_astra_03 is the best sister I could ask for, and this is why--she read this story (and quickly, I might add) even though it gives her Jack feelings, which, in her case, are usually bad. Be impressed. I am.

The air's cold—he'll be sure to remember that later, when he's running the moments through his head again, like he can relive what little time he'd had if he hangs onto the order of events hard enough. The air's cold and he forgot his gloves—he hadn't exactly had all the time in the world to pack everything he could possibly need.

Music drifts lazily through the hallways the way a prayer does as it works its way into the heavens, and he thinks, maybe, just maybe, he'll be able to walk away with some shred of dignity this time.

One can only hope.

"Tea?" A voice inquires behind him.

"Hmm?" He twists around uncomfortably to look over his shoulder and meet the Doctor's eyes.

"Tea. Do you want some?" But the Doctor's already pouring; a refusal of tea would, apparently, be an unacceptable loss.

"Herbal ronlick, please," he asks, because he knows the Doctor has it. "As much caffeine as is more than a little unhealthy, if you think I can get away with it." He rubs a hand against the armrest. It's fuzzy, though it appears to be made of leather.

"You're Jack Harkness. You can get away with anything," Jack thinks he hears the Doctor mutter under his breath.

"Almost anything," Jack corrects with a wry smile and a wink.

"Hmm," is the Doctor's only response.

It isn't a very long or meaningful conversation, but Jack leaves the TARDIS feeling at least a little more fulfilled than he had when entering.

* * *

Five years pass.

"How long were you—looking, for me?" The Doctor asks, though his back is turned to Jack as he washes the dishes.

"Long. If you want a more romantic answer, you can go with 'forever'," Jack laughs, though it's a bleak sort of sound.

"Hmm," the Doctor hums, and it's dubious noise. He wears an apron that's an odd weave of blue and pink, and Jack suspects Rose had had a hand in its creation—this sends a wistful shiver down his spine. The ghost of Rose Tyler hangs over them all; Jack catches himself expecting her quirky laugh and ridiculous fashion sense to pop up around every corner, and it doesn't exactly help ease his mind.

Especially now he's alone in the room with the Doctor with no buffer between all the frantic, glorious, attractive energy that emanates from the man even at rest: Jack is exposed, like a nerve.

He shifts in his chair. The sunlight's loving in its touch of the Doctor's face, running rivulets of gold down his cheek in a way that reminds Jack of tears.

Or maybe that's just him, projecting.

Jack stands, and he places his hand on the Doctor's shoulder as he deposits his empty mug in the sink—it's odd, but his hand feels more saturated with warmth when it rests on the Doctor's shoulder than anywhere else.

"Jack," the Doctor says, and they're so close that his spiky brown fringe brushes Jack's forehead, "When you look at me, what do you see?"

Jack considers this. His hand is still on the Doctor's shoulder.

"Love," he replies, pats the Doctor's shoulder once, and heads toward the doorway without looking behind him, though he can feel a nine-hundred-year-old stare on his back.

"See you when I see you," he calls over his shoulder, and shuts the TARDIS door behind him.

* * *

Five years pass.

"Knock, knock," Jack says, leaning in the doorframe.

"Hmm?" Ianto's practically buried in papers that lie in stacks all around the room, and Jack can't see a way to get closer to him short of wading through the piles and hoping the paper won't bite him.

"What exactly are you doing?" Jack asks, smirking.

"Reorganizing the file cabinet," Ianto replies wearily. Jack can only see his tired eyes over the nearest stack.

"Wow," Jack laughs. He checks his watch—it's half-past one in the morning. "Don't you ever go  _home?_ " he asks, only half joking.

"What home, sir?" Ianto questions sarcastically.

"Ha, ha. I'm going to count to five. If you're not gone by the time I open my eyes… well…" Jack's smirk widens. "I won't be responsible for my actions." He waggles his eyebrows suggestively.

"Sounds terrifying, sir," Ianto remarks drily. He rises and makes his way to the doorway, but he mutinously holds an armful of papers in the crook of his elbow.

"Get some rest," Jack orders.

"Duly noted," Ianto replies, but there's a twitch of a smile tucked away at the corner of his lips.

"See you tomorrow." Jack winks.

He watches Ianto leave, watches the way the hub casts more shadows on him than light—the door grinds closed after him, and Jack is alone.

"Well, this is just patently  _wrong_ ," a voice says grumpily behind him, in the stacks.

Jack's gun is out and aimed, safety off, before his heart can beat twice.

"Identify yourself!" Jack demands, stepping silently in the direction of the cabinet—papers obscure his vision, but the intruder will soon come into view.

"I've got quite a few names. 'You Idiot' is a favorite, though I'm rather fond of 'You Handsome Creature, You'," the voice laughs.

"Doctor," Jack breathes.

"That's a good one, too." The Doctor stands, brushing stray scraps of paper from where they cling to his arms.

"Is it—it's really been five years."

It isn't a question.

"I try not to break promises," the Doctor says quietly.

Jack allows that. But—"Where's Donna?" Jack asks suddenly. Dread washes over him—another one? Gone so soon?

"She's with a friend—she called it 'girl troubles'. I figured it'd be best to give it a wide berth." The Doctor shrugs one shoulder. Jack laughs. It's mostly with relief.

Jack wants to ask him where he's going next, what new emergency he's about to avert, what new stories he's going to create. Jack wants to ask if he could come along.

"Tea?" He asks, instead.

The Doctor looks grateful.

* * *

Five years, six months, three weeks, and two days pass.

Slowly.

Jack thinks he hears the Sound so many times—but every time he runs to the window he sees it's a car horn or thunder or the wind ripping through the trees.

When he was younger, his father told him that if he ever was in a tight spot,  _Just take another breath. If you can breathe, if you're alive, you'll be just fine._

Jack, as a kid, thought it was one of the wisest things he'd ever heard. Actually, it's one of the only things he thinks is still just as true from when he was naïve and thought that a "tight spot" was synonymous with failing his Annuals.

_Take another breath._

He breathes, letting it out in a sigh.

_Take another breath._

He snaps his suspenders and inhales again, as deeply as he can.

_Take another breath._

He took another breath—

_Take another—_

—and lets it out. He puts his head on his folded arms. Maybe Ianto'll bring him some coffee later.

* * *

The next time he thinks he hears the tell-tale noise, Jack decides not to get up and check. It isn't the Doctor, and if it is, he can damn well let himself in.

"OI! HARKNESS!"

Jack cracks an eye open.

"Ianto," he starts, and Ianto sticks his head around the corner.

"What is it?"

"There is a crazy person yelling at me down below. He knows my name. Would you kindly go to the window and see if I have to yell back or not?" Jack opens his other eye so he can put on his most pathetic look.

Ianto raises an eyebrow. "Exactly where does this fit in my job description?" He mutters to himself, but he walks to the window anyway. Jack takes the opportunity to admire the view.

"There appears to be an oddly dressed gentleman in a pinstriped suit waving a piece of paper that says 'I may not be ginger but you should let me up anyway'," Ianto deadpans.

"You made that up," Jack accuses. Ianto quirks an eyebrow.

"See for yourself," he insists, smiling slightly.

"Hmph."

Jack rises, and slings an arm around Ianto's waist when he finally drags himself to the window. He rests his chin on Ianto's shoulder. Sure enough—and the breath is startled out of his lungs in a huff—the Doctor stands down below, brandishing a notebook-paper sign.

"YOU'RE LATE!" Jack yells, angry and jubilant at the same time.

The Doctor frowns. "I AM?" He checks his watch. "I AM!"

"SMOOTH," Jack teases loudly.

"Please stop yelling in my ear," Ianto asks plaintively.

* * *

Five years pass.

Jack has died one thousand three hundred and twenty-two times since Rose touched him with the heart of the TARDIS. He keeps a tally. Maybe it's morbid—and maybe he'll lose count at some point—but for now, it makes him feel better. It makes him feel good; if he can find that many things to die for, then he must be doing  _something_  right.

"Captain?" The Doctor waves a hand in front of his face. "You alive, in there?"

"Uh? Oh, yeah." Jack smiles bitterly. "Not that it matters much."

The Doctor frowns, and then he cups Jack's face suddenly between his hands.

"Life is  _always_  important, Jack Harkness. Even those whose lives aren't as definite as everyone else—like ours—it's still just as important. If you learn nothing from me, learn that."

Jack can feel the Doctor's breath, and the way his thumb brushes his cheek lightly.

"Ours?" Jack repeats.

The Doctor keeps his eyes locked with Jack's—Jack can see the pain of wounded pride in an admittance of similarity. The Doctor hates what Jack is, hates what that makes  _him_ —Jack can see it in his eyes.

It took so long for the Doctor to actually  _touch_  him, even to pat him on the shoulder or  _shake his hand._

He got there, though. Jack supposes he's proud of him.

"Jack…" the Doctor starts, hands still cradling Jack's face between them, "If I asked you to—to sleep. With me. Would you—ah, would you do it?" The words are whispered, like the Doctor can't even bring himself to make them loud and strong.

Jack considers this. He weighs the options—would it mess him up much more than he already is?

"You could have asked me that years ago and I would have said yes," Jack murmurs, voice just as low as the Doctor's.

"True," the Doctor replies. "But what will you say now?" His eyes burn into Jack's, a fiery brown that's so very different from his previous face's.

"Will you hate me in the morning?" Jack counters.

"I could never really hate you," the Doctor evades.

"But who will we be?" Jack presses. "We won't just be 'Jack' and 'Doctor'. We'll have strings. Baggage." Jack hates that he became mature. When had he developed practicality?

"Jack," the Doctor laughes softly. "People like you and I are  _made_  of baggage."

Jack can't dispute that.

"Yes," he says.

"What?" The Doctor's hands spasm briefly.

"Yes," Jack repeates. "But you have to  _ask_."

"Jack," the Doctor chokes out, " _Please._ "

So Jack picks him up and carries him to the nearest bedroom, thinking to himself that hey, even the last of the Timelords needs a good fuck every now and again, and if it hadn't been him, it would have been someone else.

Once it's over, and Jack's struggling back into his trousers, the Doctor says "Where to, Captain?" and Jack briefly considers saying  _Barcelona_  and slipping back into bad habits again. He ages slowly; Ianto wouldn't notice a thing when he'd get back.

But then he thinks about Ianto, about Torchwood, and he knows that if he became a Companion, a Companion with a capital  _C_ , he wouldn't ever be back. Time-travelling is the worst kind of procrastination possible—and that's because it's the most effective.

So he twists around to face the Doctor and answers his question with "Cardiff, please," feeling responsible and melancholy.

The Doctor smiles, and it's brilliant and blinding and bright. Jack feels the smile enter into the deepest part of his soul, and it strikes him that this is the same feeling of warmth that had filled him all those many deaths ago when Rose had defeated Time and brought him back.

The Doctor kisses him, one last time.

Jack thinks, underneath the light buzzing in his brain, that the Doctor tastes of nostalgia and it doesn't surprise him at all. It also doesn't hurt to think about.

Jack supposes he's proud of himself, too.

* * *

Many years pass.

He watches the Earth end, gets to smile at the memory of a man in a leather coat dragging a sunshine-haired girl around, gets to think of laughter when the Man out of Time gives the gift of air from his lungs (with the cheekiest smile he's ever seen) to a creature that's going to try to kill him.

He'd stopped thinking of people as aliens millennia ago. Life is easier to comprehend if you didn't force it into  _categories._

He looks beyond the liquid and the glass and sees time passing, moments dying, people stepping into the future unafraid because they can't possibly know what's in store for them. He slips into another time—he does that now—and watches more running. He watches the feet and the fear and thinks  _You Are Not Alone_  into being true because he remembers that someone has to make it so.

He blinks, and thirteen million stars go out.

He blinks again, and thirteen million more begin to burn.

He takes another breath and remembers cold air around his fingertips, remembers  _having_  fingertips, and remembers drinking tea.

It's a good feeling.

He closes his eyes and feels himself drift until he is Time.

This is good as well.


End file.
